


Break a Mirror

by ProwlingThunder



Series: 100+ Words [12]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Combat, Gen, Post-Game, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-12
Updated: 2018-01-12
Packaged: 2019-03-03 22:46:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13351095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProwlingThunder/pseuds/ProwlingThunder
Summary: Like grains of sand or broken glass, time has a way of changing things while far too much stays the same. Gladio really kind of really wishes that weren't true.





	Break a Mirror

**Author's Note:**

  * For [EgoDominusTuus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EgoDominusTuus/gifts).



> Two and a Number Meme: Gladio & Prompto (Final Fantasy XV) [#75: Mirror]  
> 100+ Words Meme

There are still MTs, years after the Dawn, the same way there were before it and through the years of Darkness. Niflheim had manufactured _millions_ of them, trillions maybe; that kind of complex visual math had always escaped Gladio. There were a _lot,_ though. Maybe there wouldn't a time safe from them in his lifetime.

At least they were mostly still on the other continent, he thought, _hoped,_ as he slid into place between one pretty insistent on putting a downed Prompto in the grave. Metal shrieked against metal, but the Shield held. A startled gunslinger scrambled to his feet, raised his pistols, and Gladio shoved one foot back and twisted sideways so the automaton's whole body slid off his brace and face-first into a barrage of bullets.

Metal screamed as it fell, daemonic miasma dissolving as it rose, destroyed by sunlight. Niflheim's magitek soldiers were the only daemonic thing still moving in this day and age, a perfect affront to everything Noctis had stood for. Gladiolus would see them all dismantled if he could.

"Getting slow, Prom!"

"Screw you too, buddy!" Prompto replied chipperly, raised a gun and fired next to Gladio's shoulder, where an empty-handed banner-man had been advancing on him. He made a noise of approval; Prompto's smile wasn't blinding, the way it had been as youths, but he could tell what compliments did to the man.

Sometimes they all wondered about their abilities.

 

They finished mopping up the MTs without exchanging too many more words. Later, shored up at a haven with a campfire-- daemons might not be a thing anymore, with the return of dawn, but the runes still burned the _hell_ out of MT soldiers-- he sat with Prompto in mutual silence, broken only by the slice of whetstone over his blades, the wipe of a cloth over his shields, and the rhythmic click-slide-click of Prompto disassembling his gear and reassembling them like he could do it in his sleep.

It was nice, to share a campsite with one of the guys, even if it was a perverse mirror of the times they'd had before all this hell had come down on them. He missed the times when they would laugh and joke, missed Ignis' food instead of mystery meat in a can.

"More like a mirror shard," Prompto comments off-hand.

Gladiolus blinked at him. "What?"

"You were thinking out loud. About this mirroring what we used to do as boys." He didn't look up from what he was doing, blue eyes focused to a laser-like intensity. It was alien, comparing him to the the boy he had been years ago, who'd barely picked up a gun in his life but ran like fire was on his heels. He hadn't been able to sit still, back then, and it had driven Gladio crazy.

Now seeing him plant it was maddening.

"Oh." He paused. "Do you miss it?"

"I miss _them._ And you too, you know? It isn't the same without all four of us. Mirror shards."

There wasn't anything else to say to that, was there?


End file.
